


Man on a Ledge

by aj_novak98



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-09-17 09:14:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9315053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aj_novak98/pseuds/aj_novak98
Summary: Jack is distraught after Ianto is killed and he wants to throw himself into the untempered schism.Written as two person dialogue, like a play.





	

Jack: I can’t carry on like this any longer, I am so sorry Ianto, I loved you but you’re gone I don’t know how to keep living without you here with me. You were my world and I wish more than anything that the 4-5-6 could have killed me right alongside you. I hate being like this, being who I am. I can’t continue to love and lose and watch the people I care for leave and wither and die. Ianto you were my spirit, my joy, my humanity. Since you died I have been reckless with my actions and more people have been hurt for my sake. I can’t wait any more, I can’t wait until I am finally allowed the sweet release of death. I can never be with you again and my only hope is that my consciousness is destroyed by time itself and that her uninhibited madness will right whatever Rose did to me back on Platform One. Goodbye Doctor, goodbye Gwen, and goodbye, my sweet Ianto.

Ianto: NO! Jack I can’t let you do this!

Jack: Ianto?!? How are you here? Please let me go…

Ianto: I don’t know how I got here but I certainly know why. I cannot let you fall into the untempered schism, Jack. I love you much too much to watch you do that to yourself. There are people on this world who need you. Maybe Gwen and Rhys are busy with their lives, but there are universes of people who have yet to be touched by your charm, your kindness, and your help. 

Jack: Ianto, I have lived so long and caused so much damage. To peoples’ lives, loves and even to whole worlds. I killed you and Grey and Owen and Tosh and-

Ianto: Our deaths are NOT on your shoulders, Jack. People die. This is a fact of the universe. You can never let yourself focus on the negatives and the losses. You need to keep your eye trained on the victories. My death and the deaths of the 13 others in the building that day helped us to find the solution to killing the 4-5-6 and saving the lives of billions of innocent children. The people who you’ve lost have not died in vain. 

Jack: Even if I saved those people, there will always be more people to hurt or kill or who will hurt me; how am I supposed to keep on living this life without someone to keep me grounded? You were my rock, my reason to stay. Without you I am like a ship, being thrown about at the mercy of the wind and waves, and baby I am going down. I am lost without your compass.

Ianto: Jack Harkness, you have been living for a long time without me. I am but a blip on your radar. Jack, you are a FACT of the universe. You exist. Always. You have loved before me and you must do it again. I know that it hurts but I am dead. Dead is something that you can never be. Even if you jump into time itself, there is no semblance of a guarantee that you will die. You clung to the outside of the TARDIS to get to the end of times and you survived. If you aren’t flung from the time vortex immediately, you will be at some point. That time will likely come after some time at which point you will have been driven entirely insane.

Jack: So what? I know that I can never truly die, however if my mind, my living consciousness, is ripped away from me, then how will I be able to tell the difference? Insanity and torment may not look like an option to you but it seems like a fairly efficient one to me. (Jack takes one step closer to the edge, and Ianto’s face erupts with fear as he grabs his lovers arm tightly, with abandon)

Ianto: If you won’t do it for you, then what about the lives you have yet to save. In the years you have already lived you have done so very much good for everyone around you. If you are taken away from this life, who will be the one to save them? The humans and so many others. Everyone knows that try as he may, the Doctor cannot be in more than one place at once and he is not able to save every race, every doomed planet. You have that potential. You, Jack are the one who can save all those people. 

Jack: Ianto, I am so tired. I can’t run around at the beck and call of every distress call, be there to pick up humanity every time they lose their way. There is always someone else who can help, and if not, that event was likely a fixed point anyways. As much as I do care about other people, I no longer have a tether to life, to continued existence. I have to do something for me, for just this once in my long life.  
Ianto: No tether, you say? There are people who know you all across the universe and if any one of those people whose lives you touched were here now, each of them would say just what I am saying now. 

Jack: (begins to sob and falls to his knees, looking up at Ianto with eyes brimming and tear tracks streaking his face) I can’t do it. I am so sad, so hopeless, so lost and so tired. This life drains every ounce of me daily. And now I don’t even have sleep to rid me of my days. I just have sleepless nights, each just as draining as the day that preceded it. How can I be expected to continue with this miserable existence?

Ianto: Do it for me.

Jack: (voice breaking) What?

Ianto: Keep going for me. Live my life. Live out all of my wasted days. If you won’t keep going for you, or for the people whose lives you could change, then do it for me. I lost so much time and I can’t bear to watch you shred yourself like this. Live now for my sake. And once you have finished living my years, live out Owen’s and Tosh’s and the years of every person you have ever lost. Do not let their deaths go to waste. Live your life for them. For the people whose time was cut short. Can you do that? 

Jack: (rising slowly to his feet) I think I can. For now I will live out your time. Yours alone my sweet Ianto. I will use your years to find another solution. Just know how much that I miss you and wish you could stay forever. Also know that while I am here, I will not forget this night. I will never stop trying to find a way to end this wretched existence. I will find a way to reverse what the bad wolf did and I will join you in the sweet release of death. However, I promise to you now that I will not throw myself into the time vortex. I will never do that. For your sake.


End file.
